Obama Gives $30 Million to La Raza Affiliate

(Tea Party) – President Obama’s “promise zone” initiative gave a $30 million grant to an affiliate of the radical National Council of La Raza, reports WND.

The Youth Policy Institute, or YPI, was approved by the Obama administration as the lead agency for the city of Los Angeles when it was selected by the White House and Department of Education to receive “promise zone” grants two years ago.

Without much fanfare, as the “promise zone” recipient for Los Angeles YPI was awarded a $30 million grant in January 2012.

Still the organization is slated to receive potentially tens potentially hundreds of millions more. The “promise zone” program has pledged as much as $500 million in grants over the coming decade in an effort to help revitalize neighborhoods in central Los Angeles.

Known as Obama’s signature education and anti-poverty program, Promise Zone seeks to transform communities and schools “into vibrant centers of opportunity and excellence.”

However, what is not being reported by the media is that the Youth Policy Institute is actually an affiliate of the National Council of La Raza, or NCLR.

Among its affiliates are chapters of the radical MEChA – Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán or Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán – which is dedicate to promoting the “Reconquista” movement. The movement calls for the “liberation” the mythical ancestral home of the Aztecs— Aztlan—which MEChA regards as Colorado and California, Arizona and Texas as well as Utah, New Mexico and parts of Oregon.

La Raza has direct ties to the White House. Former senior vice president of La Raza, Cecilia Munoz, now serves as director of the White House Domestic Policy Council with specific focus on immigration issues.

Even La Raza highlighted its relationship with YPI in a press release in January.

In that release, a Raza boasted about the grant from the Obama administration. The title of the press release read: “NCLR Affiliate Helps Secure Critical Investments for Struggling Los Angeles Communities.”

And the release stated: “As part of an initiative to increase economic activity and expand opportunities in impoverished areas throughout the country, President Obama awarded a federal Promise Zone designation to the city of Los Angeles and their lead partner, the Youth Policy Institute, an NCLR (National Council of La Raza) Affiliate.”

According to that same release, the neighborhoods in central Los Angeles earmarked to receive the grant “include many predominantly Latino areas.” In 2011, La Raza selected YPI as its affiliate of the year.

La Raza funds YPI and YPI utilizes La Raza to finance AmeriCorps members working in Los Angeles in right schools. AmeriCorps is a national service organization.

In addition, there is a relationship between La Raza and YPI charter schools. Scores of La Raza fellows are teaching in those charter schools.

Advocating “comprehensive immigration reform,” the National Council of La Raza advocates are calling for “the 12 million undocumented people in our country to come forward, obtain legal status, learn English, and assume the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.”

Raul Yzaguirre, former La Raza president, had reportedly declared that U.S. English, an organization that is dedicated to adopting the English language as the official U.S. language, “is to Hispanics as the Ku Klux Klan is to blacks.”

Last month the Obama administration’s “promise zone” grant to YPI came under intense scrutiny after the Daily Caller broke the story about the organization failing to disclose to the IRS that it spent $140,000 lobbying Washington—both the White House and other federal agencies.

At that time the Daily Caller piece did not mention YPI’s ties to La Raza.

However, the Daily Caller did reveal that YPI’s executive director, Dixon Slingerland, served as a financial bundler for Obama’s first and second bid for the presidency in the 2008 and in 2012 presidential campaigns, Slingerland raised close to $750,000. Since 2009 his name has also shown up on the visitor logs to the White House a dozen times, the Daily Caller reported.

The report comes amid concern from several Los Angeles politicians who have expressed concern about the transparency of the “promise zone” selection process. Those politicians question how YPI was chosen as the official L.A. recipient.